EU countries shoot themselves in the foot when they veto sanctions Financial Times UK 5 Oct 2026 Mar tin Sandbu mar tin.sandbu@ft.com It is not a pretty pic ture: the coun try that has been most insist ent that EU mem ber states develop “stra tegic autonomy” from global powers recently forced the bloc to sub mit to pres sure from a mid dling Cent ral Asian author it arian pet ro state. Last month, France held up the six monthly renewal of sanc tions on indi vidu als and com pan ies linked to Rus sian Pres id ent Vladi mir Putin’s regime. The EU’s for eign policy rules require unan im ity for decisions on sanc tions. Paris, however, threatened to allow all the sanc tions to lapse unless the bil lion aire Alisher Usmanov was removed from the list. This, it seems, was a con di tion set by Azerbaijan for the release of French cit izens imprisoned there. Lux em bourg then fol lowed with a demand to take another olig arch off the hook. This is not the first betrayal o...
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Why a booming economy is not helping Trump Financial Times Europe 5 Oct 2026 Ruchir Sharma An Amer ican pres id ent’s party nor mally loses ground in midterm elec tions but this year is unusual. Eco nomic growth accel er ated sharply to near 4 per cent in the third quarter, yet Don ald Trump’s approval rat ing is plum met ing, par tic u larly on the eco nomy. His party is haem or rhaging sup port. Should it lose both houses of Con gress next month, which bet ting mar kets see as a live pos sib il ity, it would be the first such defeat in eco nomic con di tions this favour able since the 1950s. How could this hap pen? For many Amer ic ans, this feels like the wrong kind of boom — marred by a rising cost of liv ing and the fact that growth is driven mainly by the wealth i est con sumers and by heavy invest ment in AI, which the elect or ate has come to hate and fear more intensely than any pre vi ous tech break through. Frus tra tion with the US eco nomy pred ates...
The US is looking more like Italy Financial Times Europe 5 Oct 2026 Rana Foroohar rana.foroohar@ft.com There’s an inter est ing par lour game being played in New York these days: which dodgy eco nomic habits has Amer ica picked up from else where? Is it Malay sia’s endemic polit ical pat ron age? Is it Nigeria’s tol er ance of cash bribes as busi ness as usual? Or is it Brazil’s inequal ity, where the ultra-rich enjoy a life of lux ury along side those liv ing in squalor? Amer ica today has aspects of these and other emer ging mar kets (though that term feels like a mis nomer these days, when so many devel op ing nations are best ing their rich-coun try peers in terms of eco nomic per form ance and gov ernance). But I would make a dif fer ent com par ison. I think that Amer ica is start ing to look more like Italy, another west ern nation with a tur bu lent his tory. This is the case for three reas ons. While overt cor rup tion may not be as dire in either the U...
Marinate children in lies and victimhood and they will burn down their schools Camilla Long Camilla Long The Traitors, a BBC reality show about manipulation, murder and lying, is hugely popular among small children. When the last series came out, one primary head teacher in Wales went so far as to create a Traitors “game” to teach his pupils about “communication” and “problem solving”. I don’t mind The Traitors — it’s a bit of camp silliness with a gothic twist. But rewards for deception and killing — isn’t it a bit grown up for nine-year-olds? I also feel uneasy, by the way, about extreme race, climate change and gender ideas being pushed in primary schools. “There are over a 100, if not more, gender identities now”, is what one thrilled teacher said to a tiny child on the BBC in 2019. It’s not that I think children shouldn’t be aware of some grown-up issues. It’s just I wonder: what is the effect of such complex, frightening topics being forced, daily, on babies? What happens...
Essay | The Death of the Old Middle East—and the Dangerous New World Replacing It *India and Iran have relations. The most dangerous theater is in South Asia. Pakistan and India, both nuclear powers, have been enemies ever since the bloody partition in 1947 that divided them along religious lines. They have since fought five wars—most recently in 2025. The Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a chronically unstable garrison state with swaggering paladins and feudal political dynasties vying with popular Islamism, surging debts, economic stagnation, internal repression and two bloody insurgencies. Not only does it have a hair-trigger rivalry with India but a new minor war with its ungrateful ally in Afghanistan, the Taliban, which it has been bombing over the past week. Traditionally Pakistan balanced two patrons: China and the U.S. Pakistan recently turned Trumpian favor (Trump has described Pakistan’s chief of defense forces, Asim Munir, as “my favorite field marshal”) in...
Fondos buitre, turistas y alquileres imposibles: ¿qué tipo de ciudad queremos? La acampada en la madrileña Puerta del Sol y en otras capitales ha desencadenado un terremoto político y ha puesto el foco en la vivienda y en el modelo de ciudad. Los movimientos sociales denuncian que las urbes se están convirtiendo en una mezcla de centro comercial y ‘resort’ turístico. Cobra sentido la idea del ‘derecho a la ciudad’ del sociólogo francés Henri Lefevbre: la urbe es de la gente que vive en ella 13 min. GUILLEM ARDERIUS GUITERAS “Madrid / nos pertenece / a ti y a mí”. Aplíquese a Madrid, o a cualquier otra ciudad. Es un verso de Biznaga, la célebre banda de punk rock, conocida por sus letras críticas, siempre atentas a los trances sociopolíticos. El pasado domingo 27 de septiembre, en la acampada por la vivienda en la madrileña Puerta del Sol, se comprobó que es uno de los estribillos que, con los brazos en alto, el público más corea. Hay algo ahí que importa. Buena parte de la ciuda...
My mortgage is a problem for the Fed, and for America The mar ket is frozen and afford ab il ity is as ugly as it was in the hous ing bubble Financial Times Europe 3 Oct 2026 Robert Armstrong robert.arm strong@ft.com I bought my house in Brook lyn in 2020, using a 30-year fixed-rate mort gage priced at 2.75 per cent. Since then, infla tion and a strong eco nomy have driven the aver age rate for a 30-year fix well above 7 per cent. So I enjoy a big lump of way-below mar ket fin an cing while the value of my home has kept up with infla tion or bet ter, if online valu ation tools are to be believed. I feel very smug about this, but it’s bad for the coun try, and it’s not all good for me. Unless things change, I’m locked into the place until I die or turn 79, whichever comes first. Downs ize when the kids leave? Move for a great job offer in another city? Nope. Both would leave me poorer. Mort gages like mine are the reason why US home prices are very “sticky down.” ...